Lease your own vine with Balthasar Ress

Status report by Dirk Würtz, our estate manager - 3 November 2011

Back to the routine of daily life

It’s amazing how quickly things
return to normal. After nearly eight nerve-wracking weeks of intense
concentration during the hustle and bustle of the harvest, it’s
back to business as usual. Somehow, it’s kind of a shame that the
harvest is over. It’s definitely the greatest time of year, despite
the stress that goes with it. As far as I’m concerned, though,
things could stay that way all year round.

Everything is fermenting nicely; only
our Trockenbeerenauslese is giving me a bit of a headache. But it’s
not surprising, considering the lab analysis that shows this must
started out with about 300 degrees Oechsle. That means fermentation
is a little more difficult – but I’m certain we’ll manage. Such
high must weights are really quite exceptional. Actually, at that
level, it’s really not juice, but rather more the consistency of a
marmalade that you’d spread on bread. Without a doubt,
grandiose...but quite complicated.

This year, for the first time, we’ve
put the musts from our top sites into wooden casks. Everything from
Rüdesheim. The grapes were perfectly healthy, highly aromatic, and
picked right at the end of the harvest. We simply put the musts into
the barrels, without any special pre-clarification, and waited to see
what would happen. To virtually let fermentation start spontaneously,
knowing fully well that our cellar’s own yeast flora would trigger
fermentation.

What can I say...it tastes wonderful.
Truly exceptional and different. I’m anxious to see how these wines
will continue to develop. I’m particularly excited about our
Weissburgunder (Pinot Blanc). We only have a small quantity, but what
we have is really something. “Vinification in the extreme”:
macerated for six days: fermented while completely cloudy and without
the addition of cultured yeast; then, off into new barriques.
Intriguing, different, and extremely exciting. We’ll see what
becomes of it...I think it’ll be something truly great!

Latest media mentions

Latest news

01. June 2015Message from Christian Ress June / July 2015Our new price list is available. It’s not merely a list of products and prices printed on a piece of paper – it’s a little magazine. We went to great efforts in preparing the new list. It provides all kinds of information about our vineyard sites, our philosophy, and how we work.

01. June 2015News June / July 2015We’ve put together a new “pRESSbook.” It’s available immediately as a pdf file or we’ll be happy to send you a hard copy. The pRESSbook is a compilation of the most important opinions, reviews, and critiques about us and our wines. Since the last one was issued, there have been quite a number of new “echoes” – we’re both proud and grateful for this and the fact that our wines have been held in such high esteem in recent years.